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PowerPoint Slideshow about ' Status of Geography in High School Graduation Requirements and Exit Exams GENIP Report, 2005' - lanza

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28.61% (3,938,030) of U.S. high school students are required to take geography for high school graduation(calculated from NCES 2001 statistics)

KY, NM, TX, UT are the four states that have remained stable in requiring geography for high school graduation from 2002-2005. States have fluctuated from the Dean Report (2002), Moore Report (2004) , and the Wdowiarz Report (2005).

Criterion-Referenced Tests (CRT)- Tests that assess predetermined criteria for what a student should know.

Norm-Referenced Tests (NRT) – Tests that are bought from a testing company, useful for comparison of students to national average.

Minimum Competency/Basic Skills Exams (MC/BS) – Exams that measure a student’s knowledge of the ‘essentials’, or what a student should know to gain employment, function in society, or continue their education. (IA, MN, NE, NC, UT)

The most common assessments are standards-based (63%).The second largest are end-of-course exams (15%), used by 7 states, five more considering.

Twenty-eight states do not assess outside of NCLB requirementsof math, reading, and science.

What can GENIP do?http://www.achieve.org/dstore.nsf/Lookup/coursetaking/$file/coursetaking.pdf

Possible Approach:

A prime opportunity for GENIP to promote geography is to target end-of-course exams for states or districts that offer/require geography courses in high school. They provide more opportunity to test geography standards than a combined social studies assessments.

GENIP can target states that are in the process of adopting/changing assessments and standards.

Target states that assess social studies but not geography (AL, KY, MA, NE, OK, TN)

The degree to which a contractor is involved with assessment development varies. Some states develop their own questions, frameworks, etc. Others rely entirely on the contractors. This information is provided in the state summaries.

If GENIP were to create a geography exit exam question bank, would it be beneficial to states for test development?

Of the 25 states asked, only 4 states expressed interest(LA, MS, NV, NC) in having out-of-state developed questions available. Six states mentioned that they are interested, but there are problems with adopting out-of-state developed questions, like bidding processes, item reviews, or the states simply do not have a social studies exam to use them.

Washington, New Jersey, and Texas mentioned a reevaluation of traditional social studies, expecting students to know less of date/place/person specifics, and more about the general concepts about the processes at work throughout history. Geography is the best subject to illustrate these processes. The great advantage of geography is versatility in the curriculum. Unfortunately, this flexibility is also geography’s downfall, as it is less likely for specific geography courses to be developed.

GENIP may consider merging geography with history; this would statistically increase the amount of geography in schools. As for increasing the quality of geography education, GENIP may consider focusing on end-of-course exams, or course-specific graduation requirements.